Albane Valenzuela

Born in the US, Albane Valenzuela spent her early years of life in Mexico before her family relocated to Geneva for 15 years. Her father, Alberto, is Mexican and played golf at UCLA. Her mother, Diane, is French. Valenzuela is a Swiss citizen and speaks French, English, Spanish, and German.
She started playing golf at age 3 and after moving to Switzerland became a member of the Swiss national team in 2012, Valenzuela calls Switzerland home.
In 2011, she won six junior titles in multiple countries and then added two more wins in France in 2012. She finished 8th in the individual portion of the European Girls Team Championship in the same year and added three runner-up finishes.
Valenzuela won four more times in 2013, at the Bulgarian International Ladies Amateur, while setting a course record, the Geneva Boys and Girls Club Championship and Order of Merit, and earned medalist honors at qualifying for the Swiss National Match Play and French Team Championship Golfer's Trophy.
2014 Notes: She represented Switzerland at the World Amateur Team Championship. She led the Swiss Ladies Order of Merit in 2013 and 2014, won the Swiss International Amateur, and finished as the runner-up at the Europeans Nations Cup and Swiss National Junior Championship. She also added a 3rd at the European Ladies Amateur Team Championship in 2014. She carded a 69 at the Spanish International qualifying, the tournament-best, and finished 4th.
2015 Notes: She finished 4th at the Junior Orange Bowl Championship, a tournament she would win in 2016. Won the Doral Publix Junior Classic and the Spanish International Stroke Play Championship. She finished in the top 5 at the European Nations Cup and individual competition at the European Ladies Amateur Team Championship. She represented Switzerland at the Vagliano Trophy and PING Junior Solheim Cup. In professional competition, she missed the cut at The Evian Championship and Lacoste Ladies Open de France.
2016 Notes: Valenzuela finished 3rd at the Mexican Amateur, 2nd at the Portuguese International Ladies Amateur, and inside the top 10 at the European Nations Cup. She also qualified for the Spanish Ladies Amateur. She has played in three professional tournaments this year, finishing as the low amateur in all of them. On the LPGA Tour, at the ANA Inspiration, she tied with Hannah O'Sullivan for low amateur honors both finsihing at T-65th. She made the cut at the U.S. Women's Open finishing T-67th which made the points needed to play in Rio at the Olympics. She scored two top 5s on the Ladies European Tour with a T-5th at the Lalla Meryem Cup and T-4th at the Tipsport Golf Masters. She missed the cut at the Evian Championship. Valenzuela had the special opportunity to play in the Olympics at Rio. She shot 71-68-72-71 to finish T-21st.
2017 Notes: She competed at the Evian Championship missing the cut and represented Europe at the 2017 Vagliano Trophy against Great Britain & Ireland and posted a 3-0-1 mark. Valenzuela earned runner-up finishes at the 2017 U.S. Women's Amateur Championship, falling to Sophia Schubert, 6 & 5, and was runner-up at the 2017 European Ladies Amateur Championship. She had to withdraw from the ANA Inspiration when she had a bike accident the week before the tournament
In her first season at Stanford, she was named to the PING/WGCA All-American second team and a WGCA All-American Scholar. She finished first at the NCAA Regional and posted five other top-10 finishes. Valenzuela garnered First All-Pac 12 honors, and she ranked 12th nationally.
Valenzuela was named to the All-Pac 12 First Team in her sophomore season while posting six top-25 finishes. Her best of the season came at the Bruin Wave Invitational, where she took 2nd place.
2018 Notes: She was an honorable mention All-American as a sophomore at Stanford and a first-team All-Pac 12 player. She was 2nd at the Bruin Wave Invitational, 2 shots back of UCLA's Lilia Vu. Valenzuela was T-27th at NCAA Regional Championships (75-72-71, 218, +2) and T-21st at NCAA Championships (76-73-66-77, 292, +4). She was 59th in the ANA Inspiration, 24th at the U.S. Women's Open, and missed the Evian Championship cut. She was a member of the International Palmer Cup team. She was a member of the Swiss team in the Women's World Amateur Team Championship and was T-8th in the individual portion of the tournament.
2019 Notes: She was in her penultimate year of a political science and communication degree at Stanford. She played at the ANA Inspiration with points on the line for the 2020 Olympics, finishing T-66th. She played in the NCAA Golf Championships and was 6th in the individual section. She missed the cut at the U.S. Women's Open and was T-37th at the Evian Championship. She was still playing collegiate golf for Stanford and was Pac-12 Women's Golfer of the Year, WGCA and Golfweek First Team All-American, First-Team All-Pac 12, and an ANNIKA Award finalist. Valenzuela finished 6th at the NCAA Championships. She again made it to the U.S. Women's Amateur finals and again lost, this time to Gabriela Ruffels, who beat her 1 up. In the fall, she decided to turn pro if she qualified at the LPGA Tour Q-series, finishing 5th. She did it because she wanted to play in the Olympics again, and being a pro was the best way of doing it.
2020 Notes: In her first year on the LPGA Tour played in 10 events making 5 cuts. She was 125th on the money list with $25,342 in earnings and was 116th on the CME points list. Played in three events before the COVID-19 break. In her first start as a professional was T-45th at the Gainbridge LPGA at Boca Rio. She got her degree from Stanford during the break, taking her last classes from her family's Bahamas home. When the LPGA started to play again, she was T-28th at the LPGA Drive On Championship Toledo but soon after suffered a nerve injury in her neck. She was in constant pain and unable to practice. It started with a bad shoulder with pain from the neck down A series of MRIs helped with the diagnosis that it was a brachial plexus injury and nerve damage. She tried to play but missed the cut in four of her last five events for the year, when she missed the cut at the KPMG Women's PGA Championship, she shut it down. It was acupuncture that finally brought relief. Then in November, her appendix nearly ruptured, requiring emergency surgery to remove it.
2021 Notes: Played in 22 LPGA events making 16 cuts with one top-ten finish. Was 79th on the CBE Points list and finished 73rd on the money list with earnings of $232,074. In January, she tested positive for Coronavirus when she recovered from that. If that wasn't enough, her mother Diane had a tumor removed that was close to the eye nerve. At the end of February everything seemed ok, her mother was fine and Albane was pain-free and ready to play on tour again. After finishing T-36th at the Gainbridge LPGA, she found herself in contention at the LPGA Drive On Championship at Golden Ocala. She shot 73 in the final round and dropped into a T-5th, her first top-ten finish as a professional. Valenzuela was T-18th at the Toyko Olympics as a member of Switzerland's women's golf team. Ended her season with a 15th place finish at the Pelican Womens Championship.
2022 Notes: Was T-9th at the Palos Verdes Championship. Shot a final round 67 to finish T-4th at the ShopRite LPGA Classic, two back of the Brooke M. Henderson/Lindsey Weaver-Wright playoff.